Court Orders Landlord Plaintiff to Take Nothing, Awards Costs to Mr. Arguello

Early this afternoon, the Justice Court Precinct 3, Place 2 in Brazoria County Texas heard cause FEV02577, Freo Texas LLC vs. Martin Arguello.

Freo, the landlord, despite an ongoing suit in district court, filed this “Forcible Detainer” action against me. Basically, the landlord alleged that I failed to pay rent. However, Freo failed to tell the court that I had exercised my contractual and legal remedy of making repairs and deducting from the rent. Despite their attempts to hide behind the log with regards to repair requests, the court found in my favor telling Freo, essentially, you failed to give Mr. Arguello proper and timely notice of your change of agent.

You see, when I rented this house, the landlord agreed to perform certain repairs. However, right after I moved in, they terminated their management company. My requests for repairs were ignored by the original management company, Zing. Zing basically said, we no longer manage this property, we’ll let Freo know of your requests. Good bye and good luck. I requested that they give me the landlord’s contact information, and they refused. They also refused to provide me the new management company’s information; therefore, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place: make the repairs myself and deduct from the rent (as authorized by Chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code) or pay rent and live with a house that did not function as advertised. Well, I chose to do the former, and later brought suit for relief. Despite that, the landlord filed this eviction action. They rejected my later tenders of payment, and basically tried to hide behind the log until they could kick me out. They have never addressed the repair issues.

Well, the court didn’t buy their attempts to usurp justice. The court’s order is below.